


Mom, I Sealed the Baby!

by Terra_Reiin



Category: Naruto, Naruto - Dreaming of Sunshine
Genre: Babysitting, Don't leave the socially awkward combat nin alone with the baby, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, just beware of property damage, well you can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-17 12:13:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21267359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terra_Reiin/pseuds/Terra_Reiin
Summary: Some Nara Sibs family fluff.
Relationships: Nara Siblings
Comments: 23
Kudos: 326
Collections: Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	Mom, I Sealed the Baby!

**Author's Note:**

> Shikako and Shikamaru's relationship is still a little...strained. If looking after their little brother might improve it? Well, Shikako will try nearly anything at this point. 
> 
> Thanks very much to the wonderful Runeofluna who betaed this! <3<3<;3

“I need you to watch him.”

Shikako looks up blearily from her seat at the table, red lines pressed into her cheek from where she had lain over the scattered sheets. 

Shikamaru stands over her, chunin vest on display. Her brother is in full active regalia which jolts her into wakefulness. The only thing more dissonant about the scene is the fact that Kino is giggling in his arms, toying with the shadow fingers. Shikamaru has gotten better with his control, the translucent digits stretching when their brother pulls on them, returning to their normal length when he lets go. Seeing her looking, the baby waves at her.

“Where are you going?” She says instead, surreptitiously swiping at a thin trail of drool that had managed to dry halfway down her face. “Are you being sent out?”

Shikamaru quirks a brow at her less than composed state, but shrugs.

“Just a supply run. We need all the help we can get. Which is why-” And here he leans over, dumping the squirming child into Shikako’s lap. “I need you to watch Kino.”

Shikamaru has a little quirk to his lip, (_which Shikako is glad to see, because he hasn’t had much reason to smile at her recently_) at the way Shikako’s face automatically arranges itself into the classic ‘_please, don’t make me do this_’ look, her arms coming up to tug their baby brother away from her research. 

Except Shikako’s mind is running a mile a minute, because why now, her brother is a chunin, but he’s still on medical leave, why are they drawing them out so soon and if Ino hadn’t been by to tell her, that meant it was a sudden summons and during wartime, those were especially  **not good** so why him specifically-

Calloused fingers poked her in the cheek, jolting her from her thoughts as she meets her twin’s firm gaze.

“It’ll be fine. Just watch Kino.”

Shikako doesn’t believe she’s meant to catch the muttered _“-If you can stay still for that long…”_ as he goes out the door, but still-

** _Ouch._ **

\--

“Okay Kino, it’s just you and me now.” Shikako says seriously, facing the grinning baby. 

Kino is a lot more like Yoshino and her in that respect, more energetic than their father and brother by far. He mimics her posture, crossing his little legs, only wobbling a little as he gets them under himself.

_‘I can do this, I can do this, I can do this…’_ She thinks, grabbing some spare sheets of paper and arraying them in front of him. She hands him an old brush and some freshly ground ink. Kids like drawing right? The ink was vegetable-based anyway, so there was no harm if he swallowed it.

Kino copies her grip as she demonstrates, fascination in his eye as she paints a thick black stripe. Wrangling his pudgy fingers, he dips the brush, coming away with a tad too much ink that drips down the side of mortar. 

Kino promptly pokes the end of the brush into his eye.

No damage, thank Kami, but his eyes immediately tear up.

_ Shit. _

Kino flings the offending object away, immediately beginning to wail.

_ ‘I can’t do this!’  _

\--

Feeding time goes a little better. 

Kino is weaned, thankfully, and his bottom central incisors are already coming in, but the rest is pretty much just gum so it is a relief when she finds jars of mashed baby food in the pantry; Serving instructions in her mother’s neat handwriting pinned to the inside of the cupboard door.

Making sure he’s safely settled in his high chair, she looks through the selection.

“Let’s see…Mashed peas…” Oh. Yum? “Mashed carrots.” Eeh. “Mashed peaches.” Mmhm. “Mashed apple.. Mashed...”

_ “Daabu!”  _

She turns to her shrieking brother, clapping enthusiastically and pointing at the jar in her grip.

She smiles at him.

“Well, that seems like a ringing endorsement. Okay, Kino, let’s get you some- uh, mashed broccoli?” She pauses, looking back at him. “You sure you want mashed broccoli?”

Kino nods vigorously.

“Okay…”

10 minutes later finds them with green splotches on the ceiling, and two pouting Nara. 

Shikako sighs, swiping a dripping streak off her face. She narrows her eyes at Kino.

“You.”

Kino's dark eyes dance. At her words, his tiny hands clamp over his mouth, whole body shaking with suppressed giggles. Somehow, Shikako gets the feeling he knows  _ exactly _ what he's done. 

“Let’s… try that again shall we?” She growls playfully, reaching for another jar.

He rumbles as well, waving his gloopy spoon to ward her off.

She pounces.

(They both end up needing a bath.)

\--

Shikako looks longingly at the stack of half-finished seals on the table as she rocks Kino to sleep.

Over the course of the afternoon, the baby has been fed, bathed and hadn’t been grievously injured or lost in the past couple of hours, so she tentatively called it a success.

Honestly, she should have known better than to jinx it.

Finally, finally, able to get back to her seals after settling Kino down in his moses basket where she could keep an eye on him, Shikako attacked the pile with renewed fervor.

Even her paperwork, which she had been putting off in favor of more interesting things (i.e. everything), didn’t survive her productive rampage. 

So lost in her haze, she doesn’t notice the sun sinking below the horizon, or how the cool wind seeps in through the shoji door and rouses a certain child, or how said child, curious at what his ‘Ka’ was staring so intently at, grabs a slip, sticking the thing with the funny scribbles, wet side down, to his forehead.

“Ka!” He cheers, calling for her attention, the tag fluttering with the movement.

She freezes.

Carefully, she peels the tag off of him, taking note of the chakra present in the blood-ink mixture.

A partial, slightly smudged seal is there. 

Shikako Panics.

(It’s not activated, yet, but Mom had been trying to coax her into spending more time with him with anecdotes on how Kino let off uncontrolled bursts of Chakra, copying pretty much everyone in the house and it would be a really, _ really _ bad time to test his control now.)

She grips him by the arm, carefully, she doesn’t want to hurt him, but something in her face must give her away, because Kino goes very still, eyes widening.

(And no matter how awkward she may be around him, Shikako really loves her baby brother and she is not hurting another sibling with a stupid mistake! Fix the problem. All she has to do is fix the problem, Kino isn’t like Shika, nothing bad has happened yet.)

Carefully, so very carefully, Shikako completes the seal, Kino’s stressed state activating it right after. The seal glows slightly before it sinks into his skin and fades away. A moment of silence. Then-

Kino face-plants (luckily in her lap).

Shikako sighs again, this one deep and drawn out. Even she isn’t sure if it’s from exasperation or relief.  (It’s both.)

Figures that the first time her gravity seal would work in _ ever _ is when it’s on his face.

Feeling the tension seep out of her, Kino grins at his sister.

“Ka!” he applauds, even as his little limbs flail every which way trying to get his head off the ground.

Maybe it’s a little mean, but Shikako does take a second to watch him wiggle around like an overturned Daruma before helping him out.

“We speak of this to no one.”

\--

Kino, it turns out, absolutely  ** _loves _ ** having an overly heavy head.

He goes around the house, bashing his head into everything like a battering ram, taking great delight in the solid ‘Thwock!’ it produces. (Shikako may have stuck a seal-reinforced cushion to the top of his head. After the first 8 times of him managing to nearly brain himself on a desk, it seemed the easier option. Besides, the tag should only last an hour.)

Shikako has abandoned her previous work in favor of watching him, though an empty notebook and pen remain in her hand to catch any burst of inspiration.

“Speaking of which…” She muses, watching him collide with the shoji door frame, “There’s got to be an easier way for you to-” Her eyes widen.

\--

Shikamaru comes home to Shikako holding baby Kino upside down, painting swirls with water on the bottoms of his feet, while the kid giggles uncontrollably from the ticklish brush. Shikako looks downright manic, but she’s smiling too. The both of them look at him mid-action.

The living room looks like a printer threw up on it, paper and ink stains as far as the eye could see and there is a suspicious wisp of smoke still dissipating in the air.

Shikamaru freezes.

“...Did...Did the babysitting go okay?” he asks, looking like he very much regrets coming through the door.

They grin.


End file.
